Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl talks to Ranu Uniyal about her poetry collection Longitudes of Light., longlisted for The Wise Owl Literary Awards 2026.

Rachna Singh, Editor, The Wise Owl, talks to Nandita Bose, whose book ‘Longitudes of  Light’ has been longlisted for The Wise Owl Literary Awards 2026

 

Thank you Nandita for talking with The Wise Owl.

 

RS: Longitudes of Light opens with the idea that the question “Who am I?” is incomplete without asking “Where do I belong?” As someone who writes from movement—between cities, rivers, airports, and inner terrains—has poetry become your way of answering that second question, or of learning to live with it unresolved?

 

NB: ‘Who am I’ is an internal figurative question, favoured by philosophers and poets. Any answer given is to be contradicted. It reinvents and morphs like a chameleon. It grows with us and within us. ‘Where do I belong’ is quite the opposite, grounds us in relatable realities. Here the vantage is outside, viewing the self as a stranger would. Seeking something concrete to anchor oneself to, to possess and dispossess. Yet both are similar for they are subservient to time and throw forth differing answers as time elapses and the consciousness widens. To a poet these questions are not grounding ones, but a form of liberation and enquiry.

 

In the whirl of living, we find too few things consent to being called ours. And the few that do, we must cling to. Whether they are people, institutions or moments.

 

 

RS: You describe the collection as deliberately non-coherent, mirroring how life itself arrives—in fragments, flashes, regrets. How do you decide when a fleeting moment is “enough” to become a poem, even if it refuses neat meaning?

 

NB: It is a delight to be asked such a question for it probes the mechanics of poetry. I guess I chip away at a poem until it can fend for itself. Or, I work on a poem to the point the edits do not take away from its original intent and render the poem a sophisticated stranger. In all poetry, there’s an inflection point at which the work gets over-doctored and over-erudite which I dread even before a poem may near that mark. There is something so sacred about the first flush that often I prefer to leave it untended, even underdone. With the hope that the reader complete the circle, fill in the blanks, make up for my lapses and receive a much heavier package than sent.

 

RS: Geography in this book feels more alchemical than cartographic—Lalbagh, dystopian spaces, transient zones like airports—all altering mindscapes rather than merely locating the body. What kind of places most sharpen your poetic attention: those of rootedness or those of passage?

 

NB: In our imagination, alchemic is far more real than cartographic. And our mind dances with various locations as if testing, or living the moment. What if every encounter or chance meeting could be more, life-changing or at the very least, activating. I am a believer. Though I took me most of my life to reach this haven of faith. So, I sift through my memories a lot: both ancient ones and what happened yesterday. Transit always activates something within, enriches growth. And rootedness helps assess the changes, rework my everyday life around what the newer me demands. So, living through all life throws at me and assimilating while in transit. Whereas in rootedness recovering, unpacking and finding my centre in peace and familiarity. But poetry is untameable. It can and does burst out to demand being written; in transit or in rootedness.

 

 

RS: There is a recurring tension between intimacy and vastness—minutiae sitting beside cities, loves beside dystopia. Do you consciously place the personal against the collective, or does the poem itself insist on that dialogue?

 

NB: As the internal structure of the molecule, so the cosmos. From knowing very well in little bits we can guess at all occurrences in the universe.

 

On another note, we are all negligibly minor cogs in the machinery runs by oligarchs, organized crime and dictators and many forms of supervillains. That is our reality. And all we can do is rage against the machine.

 

But poetry is somewhat like howling into space, insisting on an answer and finding only silence. Whether you call it the purusha/ prakriti dichotomy or the ego/ supra-consciousness continuity, the miniscule against the vast is akin to certain intimations of immortality. It is a search, for something that could transcend our physical limitations. And therefore love. Therefore minutiae. If done right these are magical and may dwarf the immense.

 

 

RS: You write with a poignant awareness of possible failure—the fear that the poem may not fully “freeze the quark” of human experience. How does this vulnerability shape your voice on the page? Does doubt, in a way, keep the poem honest?

 

NB: Each poem is doomed for failure. Even the greatest of poems speak to some form of minority, only of the society it is embedded in. A poem must give way to newer forms, newer verse, newer reckoning or newer challenges. It isn’t crafted in isolation but is a collective voice.

 

In my poems, I most certainly do not have answers. Sometimes I do not have the right questions either. Sometimes I wonder whether poetry is the right vehicle for these queries.

 

Unintended but all poets do this. They have a perfect poem clouded in their imagination and try over and over to capture all its nuances. Of course, one never succeeds. One only fails less spectacularly sometimes.

 

 

RS: As a reader journeys through Longitudes of Light, what do you hope lingers longer than the poem itself: an image, a question, a sense of displacement—or perhaps a quiet permission to belong nowhere, and everywhere, at once?

 

 

NB: Let me tell you how deeply grateful I am to be considered in this longlist, for it does amplify my voice and take my poems to places they could not go before.

 

It would perhaps not be fair to my readers to dump my expectations on them. Let them take what they will from my work. Let them despise the poems or find them unreadable. Each mind interacting with these poems is different and so are their takeaways. May they mine them endlessly. A poem that cannot be pinned down is alive longer. Though in the best-case scenario: may my readers feel less heavy, feel the burden of all knowing stripped away and find joy in the written word. May their solitary sorrows be erased. May they rejoice in living. And yes, belong nowhere and be at home everywhere.

 

RS: What next?

 

NB: On the 2nd of January 2025, I lost the first cat I ever had and have not written a line of verse since. I did not want to confront her absence, at first. Then it just grew into a habit. And deeper avoidance. This is a jolt to me, a reminder that mourning too must have an end. So, I hope to have a book of poems in 2027. My bread and butter is in prose, I write novels on relationships, sometimes love, and I hope to place a couple with publishers this year. Fingers crossed. For the first time, I have a book of short stories placed with a publisher so that is a big deal for me. You know, we writers can only write. It is for readers to explore us, invest in us and hopefully read us.  

 

Thank you for speaking with The Wise Owl